- 30 of his animals have died
- State says a lot of money was spent on feeding Kgosi’s livestock
LETLHOGILE MPUANG
Former head of DISS, Issac Kgosi, is headed to the High Court to sue the state for failure to prosecute him in a case in which his property was seized because it was considered to be proceeds of crime.
Kgosi’s lawyer Thabiso Tafila of Thabiso Tafila Attorneys has told The Botswana Gazette that they were finalizing court papers to submit to the High Court before the end of this week. In the papers, Kgosi is arguing that the state’s failure is messing up his life by bringing its prosecution of him to a standstill. In addition to restoring his property to him, he wants the court to rescind and set aside his restraining order.
“It has been over a year now since Kgosi’s property was seized and we are told that the state is still investigating. What exactly are they investigating,” Tafila queried. “We are currently finalizing our submissions and we will be submitting them to the High Court this week. We sent them our intent to sue earlier this year but they did not respond.”
Tafila’s comments came after the Permanent Secretary (PS) at the Ministry of Defence, Justice and Security, Matshidiso Bokole, told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Monday that the 30 of the over 200 cattle belonging to Kgosi had died. Bokole said this in her resubmissions regarding operations at the Office of the Receiver. She said the Receiver was currently in possession of 289 cattle that were kept at a farm that belongs to the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security. “Some of the calves did not respond too well to the vaccine we gave them, some died because they were overfed while others were killed and eaten by predators.”
Bokole emphasized that government had spent “a lot” of money maintaining and feeding the cattle since they were seized last year. She said the estimated value of these cattle was over P1 million. It is these damages that Tafila said they are preparing to sue the state for.
Meanwhile, the head of the Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP) Stephen Tiroyakgosi has previously told this publication that they are not in any hurry to return Kgosi’s properties as they are legally in his custody. “We got that through a court order, and as far as I am concerned, we are not returning anything yet,” said Tiroyakgosi but would not state when they were likely to go to court.
The property which was seized almost a year ago includes portion 82 of Sentlhane Farm, Portion 83, Lot 61299 Gaborone, a Land Rover motor vehicle registered B 414 AXU, a Landcruiser motor vehicle B 975 BHI, cattle consisting of 200 heifers, 24 Simmental, 36 Brahman white, 1 Brahman bull, 1 Simmental bull, and money amounting to P549,763.07 held in a Barclays Bank of Botswana account number 862411*.The state took full control and custody of the properties pending investigations and/or institution and finalization of proceedings for a civil penalty order and civil forfeiture order.